Koffler Centre of the Arts

Join us for a panel discussion exploring the intersections of art, architecture, and memory through the lens of both the newly dedicated (2021) Synagogue at Babyn Yar, Ukraine, and the current exhibition The Synagogue at Babyn Yar: Turning the Nightmare of Evil into a Shared Dream of Good.

Featuring exhibition contributors Edward Burtynsky, Maxim Dondyuk (via live video from Ukraine), and architect and Holocaust scholar Robert Jan van Pelt, conversation will focus on the groundbreaking photographic collaboration that highlights both an important memorial to the Holocaust in Ukraine, and the importance of preserving the past for future generations.

In partner with the Royal Ontario Museum

Speakers:

Edward Burtynsky
Photographer

Photo credit: Birgit Kleber

Edward Burtynsky is widely regarded as one of the world's most eloquent contemporary photographers. His unforgettable images of global industrial landscapes represent over 40 years of dedication to bearing witness to the impact of humans on the planet, with photographs included in the collections of over 80 major museums around the world. Major touring exhibitions include: Anthropocene (2018); Water (2013); Oil (2009 at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington D.C.); China (2005 five-year tour), and Manufactured Landscapes (2003 - National Gallery of Canada).

Burtynsky’s many distinctions include the inaugural TED Prize in 2005, shared with Bono and Robert Fischell; the Governor General’s Awards in Visual and Media Arts; the Outreach award at the Rencontres d’Arles and the 2018 Photo London Master of Photography Award. In 2019 he received the Arts & Letters Award at the Canadian Association of New York’s annual Maple Leaf Ball and the Lucie Award for Documentary Photography. In 2020 he won a Royal Photographic Society Honorary Fellowship, and last year the Outstanding Contribution to Photography Award from the World Photography Organization. Burtynsky currently holds eight honorary doctorates.

Most recently Burtynsky was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame and was the 2022 recipient of the annual Pollution Probe Award. His work was central to the award winning documentary trilogy, Jennifer Baichwal's Manufactured Landscapes (2006), Watermark (2013) and ANTHROPOCENE: The Human Epoch (2018), directing the last two alongside Baichwal. All three films continue to make a profound impact in festivals around the world.

Maxim Dondyuk
Photographer

Photo credit: Sergey Anishchenko

Maxim Dondyuk is a Ukrainian visual artist working in the field of documentary photography. His practice integrates multiple mediums including photography, video, text, and archival material. Maxim’s works often explore issues relating to history, memory, conflict, and their consequences.

Selected past projects include ‘TB epidemic in Ukraine’, a two-year work which investigated the problem of tuberculosis in Ukraine; ‘Crimea Sich’, is both a series of photographs and a documentary, which tell about a military upbringing of children in the secret camp in the Crimea Mountains and its pitfalls; ‘Between Life and Death’, is a personal reflection on the aftermath of wars through the ruins and devastated landscapes, previously been battlefields; ‘Culture of Confrontation’, which in 2019 resulted in the book of the same name, and became a turning point in author’s artistic work. In his ongoing project ‘Untitled Project from Chernobyl’ Maxim works with vernacular and found photographs in the restricted areas, combining them with landscape photographs of the territories that were burned by nuclear energy.

Maxim has been widely awarded numerous recognitions including International Photographer of the Year in Lucie Awards, finalist of the Prix Pictet Photography Prize, Magnum Photos competition ‘30 under 30’ for emerging documentary photographers, grant recipient of the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography. His work has been exhibited internationally, at the Musée d’Art Moderne in Paris, Somerset House in London, MAXXI National Museum of XXI Century Arts in Rome, International Red Cross and Red Crescent Museum in Geneva, the Biennale of Photography in Bogota in Colombia, among others. He also was awarded an artist residency Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. Maxim’s works are held in private and museum collections, including the National Museum of Photography in Colombia, the Benaki Museum in Greece, the National Museum of The History of Ukraine in WWII.

Robert Jan van Pelt
University Professor, School of Architecture, University of Waterloo

Robert Jan van Pelt, recipient of many distinguished academic honours, has taught at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture since 1987 and held appointments at many higher education institutions in Europe, Asia and North America. He has published books on such diverse topics as the cosmic speculations on the Temple of Solomon, relativism in architectural history, the history of Auschwitz, the history of the Holocaust, Jewish refugees, Holocaust denial, and most recently, An Atlas of Jewish Space, which accompanied the opening in 2021 of the Babyn Yar synagogue.

An internationally recognized authority on the history of Auschwitz, van Pelt’s work was featured in two BBC television programmes and he chaired the team developing a master plan for the preservation of Auschwitz. He also appeared in Errol Morris’s film Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter Jr and served as an expert witness on the Holocaust and holocaust denial in the notorious libel case David Irving vs. Penguin and Lipstadt. His forensic work on the Auschwitz crematoria generated The Evidence Room installation shown at the Venice Biennale, the ROM and many other museums. Van Pelt is also Chief Curator of the traveling exhibition Auschwitz. Not Far Away. Not Long Ago, shown to date in Madrid, New York, Kansas City, Malmö, and Los Angeles.

A World Away: Photographing Babyn Yar

Photos